Perfectly consistent. Dr Olive has made the casual observation that the headphone response curve that is most preferred has a notable correspondence to the in-room sonics of a loudspeaker with a flat, smooth extended axial frequency response and good off-axis characteristics. In other words, if we had measured the speaker’s direct sound with microphones inside the ear canal, and added room gain, it would look a lot like the Harman headphone curve (which is measured in the ear canal). So the preference hasn’t changed, but where we put the microphone has changed (of necessity), and that is why the curves look different.
Ouch. That’s a very poorly misinformed and judgemental attitude.
I think you are misinterpreting anyone who you are judging this way.
Most people who are critical of vinyl are critical of its
accuracy, consistency and repeatability: from deck to deck, from cartridge to cartridge, from sample to sample of a record, from pressing to pressing, from clean to slightly less clean, and from the start of a side to the end of a side. Every one of those six failings against the three core criteria of a
reproduction medium, are difficult to endorse if one has standards and also has a cheaper easier alternative that meets all three criteria in all six domains.
If certain individuals are strongly critical of vinyl while praising better reproducers because ‘what they like’ is excellent reproduction, that’s not hypocritical.
LOL, got it!
As written above, I do think your calling out is a bit off track (pun) wrt to the intention of those you say are ‘full of it’. OTOH as a
hobbyist having fun, I am okay with all sorts of eccentricities. I have 4 TTs and a long term concept TT that I am stalled on but hope to finish before I die of old age in 20-30 years. I have a very decent cassette deck and an ancient R2R deck that needs attention. I have an all-valve active crossover that is no longer in service but that I am fond of just because it exists. I seriously do ‘get’ the hobbyist angle.
That doesn’t make me, or others here, a hypocrite for insisting that in terms of reproduction excellence, the above reproducers don’t cut it. Not any more.
cheers